The beast + provia 400x

It's been a long long time since I picked up the Pentax 67. Recently, seeing inspiring shots around flickr taken from that camera (a serious beast, though I refer to her as "Pennie") compelled me to pick her up again and have a go at it with some Provia 400X I've been dying to try out. There's a lot of reasons why I don't use the Pentax, especially when the Contax (remember, I call her "Connie" - see a pattern here? Oh yeah, my Minotla is "Minnie." I am shamelessly admitting this.) is just so much more user-friendly.

Given how pricey the 400X is, and the fact that E6 processing is more expensive AND the fact that Pennie only makes 10 shots per roll, bad shots can quickly become a big waste of money. Not to mention, the focusing screen isn't so great, the camera weighs a ton and a half, annnnd I have to turn on the meter prism every time I take a shot and the fastest the shutter can handle is 1/1000... er, so why did I pick her up again?!

I guess it was just for the experience of using it again. I love how gigantic the negatives (well, positives in this case) are. At full resolution, the detail is pretty insane. There's also almost no grain at all, although I do actually like the filmy grain of my 35mm. Anyway, we all know it's more the photographer than the camera, so all this chat is probably meaningless!

Here are a few shots from around the East Village and Lower East Side.

Some dogwoods that I grossly underexposed.

I was drawn to the reflection bokeh in the window, but a bit tricky to expose this scene. I missed all detail inside the restaurant.

Ooh look, could it be a properly exposed shot?

I like creeping on people from the sidewalk as they eat. #shamelessadmissionnumber2

Off to finally catch up on some of your blogs!